Sexual Roleplay as/when I was a minor

[Scarletuser888]

Hello,

I am new here, but this question has haunted me since I was 16/17. (I hope this is ok to post because it is not illegal but may be uncomfortable) I don’t watch porn, I pretty much exclusively consume written content. This has to do with my own identity as an aro/ace. Like many minors fanfics were my main exposure to sex. I corrected some typos for an erotica author on a certain site and then we ended up talking and brainstorming ideas together.

I want to stress we Never had anything sexual going on between us personally. But they had a sub space and I had dom ‘ocs’ that would deal with them; that’s why I labeled this roleplay.

I was already hyperventilating about legality before talking. It was shortly before my 17th birthday. I examined consent laws and myself. My primary concern was for Them because I know 18+ spaces are to protect adults too.

I value our friendship immensely. It’s been over 2 years and we talk almost daily. I was extremely isolated at that time due to having ‘dark’ and ‘taboo’ interests and wanting to have nuanced conversations about them but being unable to with peers my age. That’s why I went online and ambiguous about my age; people could judge if I was mature or not based on me, not my age. <- I know this ties into issues of parentification and forced maturity; caretaking has been something I’ve done since I was 6. If that’s tied to emotional maturity or being forced to mature is up for interpretation.

I feel extreme guilt when bringing up past conversations or concepts we brainstormed and obsessively check my age then. Because I made a lot of important friendships in that gray area with people I could be open with and talk to about my interests, an ever lingering sense of guilt and fraud followed me to an extreme extent. It has returned and worsened.

I am fine, I am concerned about my friend and our relationship. I also am a ‘caretaker’ dom, which adds more layers to this all.

I know we have different sides of ourselves we show to others. We both practice internet safety; I don’t have social media with photos of myself and I don’t share those with strangers either. They don’t even know my real name though I know theirs. And even going forward I do state I am an adult but don’t give my age as a personal choice regarding safety. Is this simply another thing I have to hold onto and deal with? I know people say you can’t have a healthy relationship built on lies or that is not wholly truthful, etc, but I am well versed in being in the closet and shades of gray. I caretake for my grandma who does not know I am trans. She has dementia, anyway. I agonized for years whether to come out or not as I am her favorite grandchild. But now it doesn’t really matter and it doesn’t matter to me either.

I just don’t know what to do. I’m aware this is all my fault. I’m aware of the circumstances that pushed me to make this decision. I also think without this key friendship many events in my life would have gone worse.

PS: they assumed I was around the same age as them not just due to mannerisms but my life experiences such as my enrollment in college classes too and other serious matters in my life.

Signing off with guilt that rival’s a Catholic’s

Scarlet newbie

[Scarletuser888]

Sorry not to rush anyone to reply. But I’m thinking I am going to try and judge their headspace, make sure they have support group and system, before confessing my age and giving them space. It will hurt for me too but.. I love them, I really do. As an aromantic (this isn’t the case for all like aplatonic ones) I feel very strongly about friendships… this is someone I want to talk with years later too. That is what eats me up inside. But I should also gauge my own mental health as they are a big support for me by reaching out to others

[HannahP]

Hi Scarletuser888! Welcome to our boards. This is a great place for you to post about this — you won't make us uncomfortable.

I'm hearing a couple of things in your post that I'd like to separate out. The first is that you are feeling some generalized guilt/shame for engaging with sexual media and roleplaying with others as a minor. It sounds to me like you're worried that you've harmed or endangered other people by doing this.

Next, it sounds to me like you have a specific concern about the close friendship that you developed through roleplaying — that because you didn't tell this person your age, you feel that your friendship is based on a misunderstanding. Since you really value this friendship, you want it to feel open and authentic and you want to keep this person in your life for a long time.

Finally, you are trying to decide whether the feelings of shame and guilt that you have about the two above things should be things that you process and try to deal with by yourself or whether they're things you should talk with your friend(s) about.

Does that all sound right? I'm going to try to tackle them one by one.

First, I think you're putting a lot of pressure and blame on yourself. It seems to me that you're getting very tangled up in a lot of (very interesting!) abstract questions about the legality and ethics of this situation and maybe doing a bit of anxious spiraling about it. But from what I understand of your story, you and your friend are now both adults and no harm ever came to either of you because of your friendship or the roleplaying — in fact, it sounds like instead it's been a big benefit to both of your lives! I wonder how much it's really worth speculating about the theoretical damage that could have been done, considering that none of that damage did happen and there is no way that you'll ever be in that situation again (that is, being a minor interacting with a slightly older teenager.)

However, I do understand that you still have concerns about how to handle your current friendship, since it seems you are feeling more and more uncomfortable not mentioning your age with them. I think that this is a question that is more about your personal values than one that has any kind of objectively right answer. Some people highly value honesty and authenticity and it's very important to them that their friendships and relationships are based around those values. Other people highly value privacy and tact and might often choose not to share personal details if it's not necessary or if they might cause friction. I think that making any of those choices or any choices in between is totally okay, it just depends on what's right for you. What I see in your post is that you're feeling a lot of tension between those two options right now, like in the example with your grandmother. Figuring out what your personal values are in this situation will be a challenge, but also likely to be very rewarding! It sounds in your second post that you are leaning towards talking to your friend — do you think that you're leaning this way because it would align better with your values and the kind of person and friend you would like to be?

[Scarletuser888]

Thank you, those are the two main issues I am having!

Yeah, I know what I’m doing right now is a little unhealthy spiraling; I struggle with intrusive thoughts and obsessions with being a ‘bad person’. I don’t have OCD but my friends with OCD sometimes joke about it because of how much I relate and clarify I’m just really autistic haha… of course diagnosis are somewhat subjective boxes but I do recognize some unhealthy patterns obsessing over self morality

The issue is the age gap is a bit larger; they are currently 26 and I am 19, about to turn 20 in august. The reason I felt comfortable with them though is my best friend is a couple years younger and my sister is a year younger both of who I talked about a lot of mature topics with already.

The current spiral I have, because I did go through one before about this, has me reading about laws and legal stuff that has got me feeling very sick and worried for my friend. I suffer from thinking in extremes. I have thought about deleting my entire account so they wouldn’t get in trouble for messages. Further more I am afraid I what I send could be used against them? I know how they feel about rp with minors and that makes me feel extra guilty.

I wanted to tell the truth, because I want to be there for this person. But right now I have the growing paranoia most adults face nowadays on the internet about interactions with minors except from the side of the ex-minor haha. So the thing stopping me is mostly legal anxiety and matters of harm reduction. I don’t want to get them in trouble but I also know a sudden disappearance would also hurt.

[HannahP]

I'm glad that you can recognize this as connected with your experience with intrusive thoughts and anxiety! I'm also glad that you're noticing the pattern that researching and thinking about the legality questions is increasing your anxiety, not soothing it. That's a very common issue and it can be a tough cycle to break out of!

What I can tell you is that actual laws around minors and sexuality are usually focused on photos and videos, which is something that you've said that you're careful to not share. I do not believe that you need to be worried about this situation in terms of legality or consequences outside of anything just between you and your friend. I'd like to gently suggest that you try to avoid doing more reading and thinking about that topic. Instead, can you try redirecting yourself when you feel your thoughts start to drift in that direction? Instead of reading about it, can you try choosing an activity that you find very enjoyable and compelling to do instead? For more anxiety management strategies, you could take a look at this article, which has a good roundup of resources: Anxiety and Other Mental Health Resources.

If we separate out your desire to tell your friend your age from your fear of them getting in legal trouble, how do you feel about it? One thing I want to point out is that there is no harm in taking some time to make the decision about whether or not to tell them — and taking some time to let some of this intense anxiety pass will help you make a good decision that is intentional and thoughtful, rather than fear-based. What do you think about that?

[Scarletuser888]

Hello Hannah,

You are correct. It wouldn’t be a wise idea to make a fear-based instead of compassion based decision right now. This is also bad timing since I have summer classes and a final paper due this weekend haha, but mental health always hits at inopportune times. I will try to avoid reading more about this topic as it is just making me more anxious reading others anxiety or gut reactions. Although I think this is an interesting issue that does not get discussed often my curiosity is too deeply tied into my anxiety.

I do want to tell them because I value them dearly. I will update on this thread when I am in a better headspace about how I might approach this. And to be honest, this is something I’ve been torn up about on and off throughout the years. It’s a weird mix of the more time passes the less relevant it may seem, yet the more my anxiety about it grows.

[HannahP]

Hi again! I just wanted to pop back in to say that I love the way you're thinking about this. I really relate to your experience of being compelled by both anxiety and curiosity to think about a particular topic.

I think taking some time and space to settle your anxiety about the legal stuff is a wonderful idea. When you're ready, we can talk about telling your friend your age — it sounds like this is something you've been conflicted about for awhile and I personally find that working through conflicted feelings like that can be really rewarding. I hope you're feeling a bit better and that your school work is going well!